


Sharp Feathers

by Astrarian



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Aretuza (The Witcher), First Meetings, Gen, Owls, References to Past Child Neglect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24397522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astrarian/pseuds/Astrarian
Summary: Triss Merigold lets an owl into the Aretuza greenhouse. She doesn't know that among mages, an owl isn't always just an owl.Tissaia de Vries does. That's exactly why she's suspicious.
Relationships: Philippa Eilhart & Triss Merigold, Tissaia de Vries & Philippa Eilhart, Triss Merigold & Tissaia de Vries
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	Sharp Feathers

Something smacked against the greenhouse window. Triss yelped and jumped, spilling the dwarven spirit in her hands. The subsequent waft of strong alcohol made her wince.

Eyes watering, she waved her hands to dispel the concentrated spirits in the air, aware of a tender cuticle on her left thumb stinging where the alcohol had splashed. When the air cleared, she was able to see the mess on the workstation: the flowers she'd been studying were soaked in spirit and liquid dripped off the edge of the table to the floor below. Triss would have to clean all of that up. Extremely thoroughly.

She groaned quietly, throwing an accusing glance towards the window, and saw a dusted imprint of a wing on the glass. A bird must have struck the window. Perhaps it had been confused by the candlelight allowing Triss to work at such an hour. Perhaps it was hurt.

Triss hurried to the window, unlatching it to lean out and look around for the culprit. As she did, she pushed a few withered leaves off the window ledge into the outdoors. They fluttered down into the rectangle of light cast by the open window onto the rocks. Triss noticed her stark silhouette in the centre of the light immediately, and within was a large pale bird, not quite upright and with one wing awkwardly extended on the ground. It jabbed its beak at one of the falling leaves.

“Oh,” Triss said with a small gasp.

She recognised the bird as an owl. It turned bright yellow eyes towards her, sharp beak slightly open as if also surprised. It had probably stunned itself on impact.

The breezy night air made Triss shiver. She bit her bottom lip instead of chewing her thumb, and after a few moments said, “Come in if you want.”

She backed away from the window, more to find her shawl than from any expectation, but a ruffling sound preceded the owl flying up to the window ledge. Triss watched the bird hop to the table and then flutter inelegantly into one of the climbing ivy bushes on the nearby wall. Once there, the owl fluffed its feathers briefly. There were dark spots at the ends of many of its white feathers, and Triss wondered whether they would be as soft to the touch as the special black and white ducks she’d seen in the Maribor market once.

She swallowed, an ache clamping around her guts. For touching the ducks through the bars of their cage, she’d been yanked away so hard that her shoulder hurt for days, and later dismissed to the doorstep overnight. It rained all night, and her empty stomach gnawed on itself from hunger and cold.

The owl settled in among the leaves, the outline of its body becoming sleek and poised in a matter of moments. It turned an enigmatic stare on her. In the low light, Triss probably couldn’t see the owl even half as well as it could see her, but she could still sense its intelligence. 

“I can’t tell whether you’re hurt,” Triss said quietly. 

The breeze from the open window made her skin prickle again. Rather than returning to the idea of collecting her shawl, she inched her way back to the window and pulled until just a few inches of open space remained. She’d open it again as soon as the owl showed a desire to leave.

Then she stepped closer to the bird. “You don’t look hurt,” she said. “I hope you’re not.”

The owl was a little way above her in the ivy. As she carefully reached up, she expected to be bitten. When the owl didn’t react, she dared to hope, and touched the top of its head lightly. 

Not as soft as the ducks, but far softer than anything she’d felt for months. The most comfortable things at Aretuza were the woollen blankets in her bed. They were warm and dry and she was so grateful for that, but they were more itchy than soft.

Gently, she stroked the fine feathers, and when the owl simply hunched its head ever so slightly downwards, Triss realised she’d been holding her breath. She released it slowly.

“Why are you flying into windows, hm? You might hurt yourself next time.”

She stroked down the owl’s back. Underneath the feathers, she could feel the hard ridges of its spine and the fine bones of its wings. Incredible. When she’d reached the end of its body, she returned her hand to its head. Part of her expected the owl to attack her, even though it hadn’t last time. Once again, it simply accepted the touch, and she repeated the stroking motion more confidently, pausing at the dark flecks in its plumage.

“You’re so pretty,” Triss murmured, both taken aback and thrilled by the turn of events. How much time did she have before the owl would want to leave? How long could she, could both of them, enjoy this for?

She certainly couldn’t let the owl stay here indefinitely. Imagine! She grinned, picturing herself with the owl on her shoulder as she studied, the other girls admiring them both.

Then she heard footsteps in the corridor.

* * *

Strolling the halls of Aretuza at times the girls didn’t expect did more than satisfy Tissaia de Vries’s need to stretch her legs after hours spent answering correspondence. It helped to teach the girls – future advisors to the men that shaped the Continent, and thus themselves shapers of the future – not to let down their guard. That was a necessary skill for life at court: mages were constantly at risk. Not teaching that as early as possible could be their undoing.

She also wanted the girls to learn to take respite whenever possible, be that in a short moment of companionship or a longer period of solitude. That too was a necessary skill at court, staving off fatigue. But it was more difficult to teach.

She walked through the academy’s corridors, choosing a slow and deliberate pace to accentuate the sound of her footsteps. Her automatic route, though she wouldn’t admit that she had one, took her to the greenhouse. 

On the way, she passed Fringilla Vigo’s former room, then Sabrina Glevissig’s, and finally Yennefer of Vengerberg’s. It was unusual for her to associate rooms with their former occupants. But Yennefer, Fringilla and Sabrina were an unusual trio – powerful, emotional, combative. Training three such women at Aretuza at the same time had been unique even in Tissaia’s long tenure as Rectoress. Not since Philippa Eilhart and Sheala de Tancarville were students had her patience been tested quite so thoroughly.

Tissaia still found herself listening out for confrontations between the girls. However, life in Aretuza had calmed and continued without the three, as it had after Sheala and Philippa left. Across the Continent, girls had conduit moments and arrived at Aretuza via one method or another, and Tissaia shaped them into worthy conduits of Chaos.

As she approached the greenhouse, a crispness to the air in the corridor suggested an open window. She also heard a voice murmuring. There weren’t many students at present and she was curious as to who was out of their room at this hour, but the walls muffled the voice’s identity.

Tissaia doubted she would be surprised by anything she found. She’d interrupted countless secret confessions and illicit experiments, vicious fights and heated conversations, in the greenhouse. With the reminder of Philippa and Sheala in her head, one amusing memory crossed her mind.

“What’s happening here?” she remembered calling as she hurried into the greenhouse, drawn by the sound of smashing glass and screeching.

Sheala clutched the doorframe, shoulders shaking. For a moment Tissaia thought she was the source of the screaming, or that her grimace meant she was in pain, but she quickly saw the focus of Sheala’s attention.

An owlet, scraggly and shrieking, dived through the air in a flurry, crashing into the edge of one of the workstations and plummeting to the floor.

“Philippa!” Tissaia exclaimed. For years Philippa had been rigorously studying and investigating that most complicated magical ability: polymorphy, the ability to change oneself into another form. Her progress had been incredible, but in recent months her progress had been accompanied by such wanton vandalism that Tissaia wondered whether Philippa had been suppressing an urge to deface Aretuza from her very first day.

Shrieking again, the owlet skittered across the floor into the base of a nearby bush, wings akimbo. Beside Tissaia, Sheala lost whatever control she had and burst out laughing.

“Is this intentional?” Tissaia demanded. But Sheala couldn’t answer, consumed by her amusement.

“Away with you, Sheala.” Tissaia pointed to the doorway and waited until Sheala had tottered down the corridor before setting to the task of controlling Philippa, ears ringing from her screeches.

Catching Philippa, Tissaia recalled, had taken both physical and magical skill. Philippa had been – and still was – proud and powerful to a fault.

Tissaia could admit that some of her fondness for the memory came from the satisfaction of the girl knocking some sense into herself with each crash-landing. But she also recalled the softness of that small owl’s scraggly feathers once Tissaia had caught her, and how she panted under her hands as she stroked her and soothed her, just as she would have soothed any injured creature. She was proud of the girl, despite the mess. She didn’t tell Philippa, as it would have inflated her ego further, but her pride was clear in her enthusiastic endorsement of the girl for ascension and assignment at court.

Keeping her footsteps heavy to announce her presence, still slightly lost in the memory of her former student, she walked into the greenhouse.

“Triss,” she greeted, gaze flitting about the room. “My, my.”

“R-rectoress!” the girl said, looking over her shoulder at Tissaia slowly and nervously.

Triss Merigold was a fairly recent initiate. She had the necessary predisposition towards Chaos, of course, and also a natural talent for chemistry, a sharp mind, and a willingness to work. More interestingly, she possessed a warmth and affability of character that could prove very useful in an advisory position, if wielded correctly. It was an unusual trait among the girls who typically found their way to Aretuza.

Tissaia had high hopes for her.

The girl stood across the greenhouse, adjacent to a large bush of ivy that crept from floor to ceiling and regularly had to be trimmed back. The greenroom was one of Triss’s favoured spots in Aretuza, and trimming the ivy was a task the girl had adopted as her own.

Opposite the entrance where Tissaia stood, a window was indeed ajar. A book and a couple of scrolls were on one of the workstations, with yellow flowers occupying the primary workspace. A flask had been knocked over on top of them, liquid pooling around the flowers. The scent of a strong spirit hung in the air despite the open window.

And only a handspan away from Triss within the lush, deep green of the ivy, a set of bright yellow eyes gleamed, fixed on Tissaia. It was a predatory bird, given the colour of its eyes and the sharp shadow of a beak. 

Tissaia threw up her internal wards. She had immediate suspicions about nocturnal birds of prey in Aretuza.

“What are you doing awake at this hour, Triss?” Tissaia asked, letting disapproval that she didn’t fully feel seep into her tone.

Triss looked like she dared not take her eyes off Tissaia despite her clear interest in the bird. “I-I was studying.”

“Celandine, it appears,” she said, casting an expectant glance at the girl.

“Llygad ebrill.”

“You can remember simple names.”

Triss looked both abashed and relieved, and Tissaia continued. “Good. But everything you need to know about celandine at this time will be covered during lessons,” she said.

Triss looked at the floor. “Yes, Rectoress.”

Tissaia considered her next words. In truth, the matter was far less pressing than that of the bird of prey behind the girl.

“Pets aren’t allowed at Aretuza,” she said, “and you’re not ready for a familiar.”

Triss raised her eyes to glance at the bird. “It’s an owl,” she said, her tone one of happiness.

Tissaia crossed the room, cautiously. As she got closer, the shadows among the ivy did indeed resolve into the shape of a large pale bird.

“An owl,” she repeated.

Triss nodded eagerly. “It flew into the window.”

The owl in the bush blinked and turned its gaze on Triss – as if the bird had understood and disagreed vehemently with her.

Tissaia instantly disregarded this anthropomorphic thought. The owl also looked wise and stupid in equal measure. In short, it was as vacant as any typical bird, which was all the more dangerous because she was confident that this owl was Philippa Eilhart herself: concerning enough by itself, all the more now because Triss was unaware of the owl’s true identity.

Triss was young and affable, and consequently, she was impressionable. Tissaia had no intention of letting the actual Philippa Eilhart influence any student of Aretuza prior to her ascension. Preferably not until many years after her ascension, either.

“It flew into the window?” Tissaia repeated, schooling her expression as she stopped a few feet from the girl.

“Yes, that window,” Triss said, unnecessarily inclining her head to the open window. “She took me by surprise.”

“How interesting,” Tissaia said. The girl blushed, clearly taking the comment as a snub, though Tissaia hadn’t intended it as such. The owl switched its gaze to Tissaia.

Tissaia set her jaw in response, meeting the gaze full-on. A small number of opportunities to lock eyes with an owl that wasn’t Philippa Eilhart had presented themselves to her over the years, in various marketplaces as well as courts. She’d taken a greater interest in the creatures for a time, hoping it was possible to see Philippa’s particular brand of contempt in her adopted form. But it transpired that all owls looked the same, regardless of whether they were mages in disguise. Polymorphy would hardly be so powerful a weapon in Philippa’s arsenal if she were so transparent.

In any case, Tissaia was perfectly capable of imagining Philippa’s sneer, though doing so immediately made her frown.

“Animals belong outside Aretuza. Why did you let it in?”

“I thought she might be hurt.”

“She?”

“Oh… I don’t actually know,” Triss said. She looked back at the owl. Tissaia could hear a smile in her voice when she said, “I just feel like she is.”

Triss reached up, fingers brushing ivy leaves aside, aiming for the owl’s feathered head. Clearly, she intended to pet the creature. Tissaia tensed and strode forward, preparing to bat Philippa away when she inevitably bit the girl’s hand. She was partway to Triss’s side by the time the girl touched the owl, but in what was the most surprising moment of Tissaia’s recent days, when Triss began stroking its head Philippa allowed it to happen.

“You’re pretty, aren’t you,” Triss cooed. “And so soft.”

Philippa hunkered down beneath the touch, the feathers around its neck puffing up briefly. Her eyes fluttered from open to half-closed. Tissaia’s own eyes widened at the sight. Thankfully, Triss’s attention was on the owl.

After a few moments, Tissaia found her voice. “The creature looks to be fine.”

“She seemed clumsy when she first flew in,” Triss said, her stroking shifting to scratching the owl’s head. Triss was evidently charmed, and Tissaia felt the stirrings of affection in her breast when the owl’s eyes fluttered again. Not for the first time she wondered whether some human traits were lost in the transformation between man and animal. 

Scepticism rising, she tilted her head. The atmosphere was slightly too pleasant. During all the years that Philippa had spent mastering polymorphy, Tisaaia was sure she’d perfected how to use the skill to manipulate others as well as spy on them.

“Does a creature foolish enough to fly into a window deserve your compassion?” she asked.

Triss hesitated, and then said meekly, “No, Rectoress.”

“That isn’t what you intended to say,” said Tissaia. She wasn’t looking for another Philippa Eilhart or Yennefer of Vengerberg, but she’d noticed this unwillingness to speak out in Triss, and she couldn’t permit a lack of courage in one she intended to see ascend to the highest court. She’d never survive. “Tell me what you think.”

Triss bit her bottom lip, continuing to stroke Philippa the owl. 

“Speak,” Tissaia said, more harshly than she would have if they’d been alone, for unlike Yennefer, Triss required coaxing more often than goading.

“I don’t think animals can be foolish,” Triss said. “They’re not human. They act on instinct. No thought involved. We… Shouldn’t we have compassion for those that don’t know better?”

“And if this weren’t an owl, but simply the shape of something else?” Tissaia said, sharply. Her example was too specific, of course, and she continued. “Monsters take many forms, as do humans. Many an assassin has taken the guise of a lover. Even an animal can be a tool for such purposes. What if this owl transmitted disease? There is a place for compassion in the world, but it must be conscious, Triss.”

Triss’s shoulders slumped. The stroke of her fingers slowed in the owl’s feathers. The owl’s eyes were open again, fixed on a point near the open window, radiating inane wisdom. She was anything but inane.

With Philippa in this form, Tissaia had the advantage, however slim. Making sure to hold the sleeve of her gown in her palm with her little finger as she did, she reached out, movement steady. She placed her hand on Philippa’s head, over Triss’s warm fingers – not gently, but not with any real force either.

Immediately, Philippa the owl flinched. Her eyes widened and focused on Tissaia’s with all of the intensity of a predator. Tissaia watched the beak and the talons, waiting for an attack, or a retreat. Yet neither was forthcoming.

In a spur of the moment decision, Tissaia stroked Philippa’s head. Her feathers were as soft and luxurious as velvet. They were not, perhaps, quite as soft as she’d remembered, given that Philippa was no longer a downy owlet. But they were present, rather than a memory.

She looked at Triss, who broke from her fascinated study of the owl to glance back at her. 

The moment lingered. It couldn’t last – Tissaia couldn’t let it. But she accepted the seconds of stillness as they passed, finding a semblance of tranquility in them. She hoped that Triss was learning to do the same.

Tissaia let a tiny smile lighten her stern features for Triss. “She is soft,” she allowed, knowing the words would ruin it, intending as such. As Triss smiled back at her, Tissaia looked at Philippa the owl.

She finally met expectations and tried to bite her.

The sleeve of Tissaia’s gown blocked Philippa’s beak from making contact with her arm, but the fabric tore beneath the sharp curve. Triss gasped at the ripping sound, flinching while Tissaia withdrew her hand smoothly. She marked the match as a victory in her mind, one Philippa would undoubtedly contest in short order.

“Put it out,” she told Triss, eyes flicking to the window.

Though the owl watched Triss warily, Tissaia had the impression Philippa was sparing more of her wariness for Tissaia. Tissaia retreated, righting the spilt flask on the messy workstation before returning to her observation.

Triss tentatively reached out to Philippa the owl again. “She wasn’t trying to hurt you, you know,” Triss murmured as she placed an index finger on the owl’s chest. She hummed and then said, “I’m not either.”

She crooked her finger and pushed a little deeper between the feathers, before tickling gently. “That’s it. It’s all right.”

Tissaia half expected Philippa to bite Triss as well after a few seconds, once she’d let her guard down. She still didn’t. Tissaia knew she’d dedicate some thought to deciphering just what that implied.

Triss ran her hand down the owl’s chest and in a quick, confident movement that Tissaia also noted, she lifted Philippa from her position in the ivy bush onto her free arm. Smoothly, without actually taking her eyes from the owl, she moved to the window and opened it.

The owl spread its wings and took off, quieter than a mouse. Triss watched the grey shape melt quickly into the darkness, and Tissaia watched Triss watching. After a few moments, the girl straightened and pulled the window shut.

“Back to your room, Triss, please. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Triss smiled at her despite the thoughtfulness and uncertainty clouding her features. She bobbed her head quickly. “Good night, Rectoress.”

She padded out of the greenhouse and her footsteps faded from hearing. Tissaia turned her regard to the window. It took very little time for an owl-shaped shadow to reappear, confirming her suspicions. The owl tapped against the glass using its beak.

Tissaia considered latching the window and exiting the greenhouse, leaving Philippa out in the cold. But her curiosity was piqued. Besides, Philippa would likely resort to further and potentially more disruptive measures to get inside Aretuza if that was what she desired.

The owl rapped its beak on the glass again.

Tissaia moved to the window, paused for a moment as the owl took flight, and then opened it. She clasped her hands in front of her body in the universal posture of cool, collected composure.

The owl glided into the greenhouse and a bright flash of light and ruffling feathers followed. Tissaia naturally shut her eyes against the light, and when she looked back Philippa Eilhart stood in the centre of the room, arms crossed, hip cocked, the faintest trace of a smirk curling her mouth.

“Tissaia,” she said.

“Welcome back, Philippa,” Tissaia replied. She spread her arm in a welcoming gesture, the one Philippa had bitten, and the younger sorceress’s eyes flicked to the tear. “Convention states that guests should use the front door, but I daresay you find door handles a struggle on occasion.”

“I’d have sent a note, but I didn’t want you to know I was coming,” Philippa said airily. “How are things? Your standards seem to have slipped somewhat.”

“Wardrobes are replaceable. Tendons are not.”

“I meant your new students.”

“Leave Triss out of this,” Tissaia said sharply, to her own dismay. “You’ve done enough.” She pointed at the mess on the table.

Tissaia was fleetingly pleased when Philippa’s smirk vanished, but her regret over the outburst grew quickly, especially once Philippa’s mouth curved upwards again.

“Are you going to clean that up yourself?” she asked.

Tissaia sighed, already tired of the game. “Stop wasting my time. We both have better things to do.”

Philippa held her gaze for a moment and then uncrossed her arms. “I’ve been away,” she said, “and you know I can’t stand the ridiculous posturing by your fellow maladroits in the Chapter.”

“I noted your absence at the last conclave.” Tissaia drew her hands back together, still wary of Philippa’s possible motives, but willing to continue the conversation to try to determine them. “How is Sheala?”

“Why are you asking me?” Philippa said, raising her eyebrows and carrying on as if Sheala’s name meant nothing to either of them. “King Heribert of Redania is growing old…”

* * *

Triss paused at the end of the corridor, remembering the smell of spirits and the mess she’d left at her workstation. She began to turn back, thinking that Tissaia would be happy not to have to clean up after Triss.

But then she stopped. Tissaia had explicitly asked her to leave, not to clean. And she’d smiled at her. If Triss disobeyed, even if it was for reasons that she thought were good enough, Tissaia would be disappointed, and that thought made Triss’s stomach ache.

Back in her room she tucked herself beneath her blankets, waiting to warm up. Absently she put her left thumb in her mouth to rip off the small, irritating flap of skin next to her nail with her teeth, and recoiled at the bitter taste left by the spirits. Instead, she rubbed the scratchy blanket back and forth over the tender spot until her skin was red and warm, drifting into sleep.

Rain fell around her in the Maribor marketplace. 

An owl towered over Triss like a grand lady, huge eyes pinning Triss where she stood in the mud. Her body barely fitted within the cage that trapped her, beautiful dark-flecked feathers poking between the bars.

Those bars were wide enough to reach through, and Triss did, yearning to touch though the razor-sharp tip of the owl’s beak was as wicked as the point of a knife left in a fire. Shaking, stomach clenching, Triss placed both hands on the owl’s feathered breast, her fingers disappearing between the barbs of her feathers.

“Triss, no!” a voice spat, hard fingers digging into her shoulder, yanking her backwards.

The owl jumped beneath her hands, screeching, great wings sweeping outwards and snapping the constraining metal bars into pieces. Air buffeted Triss’s body and the pain in her shoulder doubled as the owl grabbed her, her talons gouging straight through the fingers and into her flesh for purchase. Triss tried to protect her head, which was ringing from the shrieking, but her arms hurt and they were blocked by the owl’s powerful legs. Her grasping hands sank between feathers again.

She held fast to the power in the owl's legs, scrunching her eyes shut until they hurt nearly as much as her shoulders. Screams pierced the world.

As she looked up wildly, the owl’s beak ripped a hole in the rain, creating a jagged tear that ran down the sky behind her and ended in a space where nobody at all waited for her.

All fell quiet. Triss cried, her tears squeezing between her eyelashes and leaking down her face. The empty space behind her held nothing, and the rain pattered gently against the void. 

She trembled, afraid of the quiet, waiting for it to break with another scream, stomach gnawing itself. She forgot how anything except the rain sounded. She kept holding on, until the owl shifted, and Triss felt her warmth under her hands.

Her fear lifted. When she moved her face, daring to look behind her, feathers brushed Triss’s cheek. Their edges whispered promises of protection and control over Chaos into her skin, and she turned away from the absence at her back, wiping her face on the owl’s feathers.

She awoke with that imagined warmth suffusing all of her limbs, the dry blankets a wonderful weight over her, even if they were scratchy. Only the faintest hint of hunger stirred down in her stomach. The grey light outside meant it was early, but not so early that there wouldn't be food in the kitchens.

Triss slipped out of bed and through the familiar corridors and claimed two freshly baked rolls of bread with creamy butter from a breakfast basket. The bread was still a little warm as she ate, and the slightly melted butter smeared on her fingers, wiping the remembered bitter taste of dwarven spirit from her mind. 

Her destination was the greenhouse and the mess she’d left the previous night. When she got there, however, the mess was gone from her table, replaced with a folded piece of paper. 

Triss opened the note and found a feather between the halves of the paper. Her breath caught. She didn't remember the owl losing a feather, though it must have. 

Every detail stood out as she lifted it to the morning sunlight: the dark spots against white, the sheer number of little barbs branching off from the central shaft, how they smoothly linked together, and the overall curved edge tapering to the pointed tip at the apex of the feather. 

It was incredible to hold, just like the owl itself. All over again she felt amazed that she had held a creature fully able to strike at any moment, and that it hadn't for so long, in spite of its vulnerability.

On the paper, words had been written in Tissaia's flowing, flawless script. 

_Attend my office this morning. Please bring the feather._

Triss smiled, rolling the feather between her fingers. Though she wondered what Tissaia had in store for her, mostly she felt warm again at the memory of the owl on her arm. She didn’t deserve it, but she was proud of herself for not being bitten, even though that was probably down to luck as well.

It wasn't her first stroke of luck, was it? She was lucky to be here in the first place, where there was enough food and she had a room of her own, and she was lucky to have the chance to learn from the greatest sorceress alive. 

A wisp of her dream floated back too. For a second she saw a smile reflected in the great lady owl's eyes, behind the sharp beak and feathers. She didn’t deserve that smile either, but Triss glowed underneath it. Holding the feather in her hand, she vowed to herself that she'd try and try until she saw Tissaia smile again; never disobey, never disappoint, and never be cold or hungry again.

**Author's Note:**

> For something that started as a fluffy idea about Philippa having a soft spot for Triss because young Triss was nice to her as an owl, it sure got serious.
> 
> There aren't enough owls in the show. Show writers, if you're gonna merge Philippa's character with Tissaia's like I suspect, you could at least give me an owl to soften the blow.


End file.
